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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658060">Three Seconds</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aristotle_chipotle/pseuds/aristotle_chipotle'>aristotle_chipotle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Inception (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>I'm back at it again at Krispy Kreme, M/M, Mid-Canon, Short &amp; Sweet, Slightly Prose Kinda Maybe, soft stuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:21:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658060</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aristotle_chipotle/pseuds/aristotle_chipotle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The most terrifying part of waking up from a dream isn't the kick. It's the three seconds before, and the three seconds after. </p><p>It's all the time you get to prepare yourself, and all the time you get to recover.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arthur/Eames (Inception), Dom Cobb/Saito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Three Seconds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The worst part isn't the kick. It's the three seconds before, and the three seconds afterwards. Anyone who's taken a hard wake-up in the middle of a shared dream knows it.</p><p>The three seconds are liberating.</p><p>Ariadne throws herself off the building in an act of defiance. She makes an active choice, taking comfort in her new agency, her understanding. She knows she will land hard, and she will go home. She knows how the dream works, but there are still those three seconds of uncertainty right before impact, when all she feels is wind in her hair and her ears, and the slight scream she allows herself as the world goes by faster and faster and faster and-</p><p>She is awake as the world collapses. A fortress is crumbling around her, and she just barely makes out the shapes of Eames and Robert as she falls with the detonation. She falls and, for three seconds afterwards, she feels herself crushed into nothingness. She feels the sting of an explosion against her cheek and the overwhelming pressure of smashed concrete shrapnel on bone.</p><p>The three seconds are terrifying.</p><p>Yusuf drives off a bridge, as simply as that. Everything has been timed. He's adapted, and now the show must go on. But there's always a pang of fear as he takes a leap of faith. He feels weightlessness and then a shattering feeling as they cut through water. Glass smashes.</p><p>He has succeeded, and they will wake up. He can already feel the world fading away as every new slash of water against the windows pulls him closer to reality.</p><p>The three seconds are disorienting.</p><p>He isn't sure how long he's been asleep, because it doesn't feel like dreaming. It's a mess of fragmented memories that cut sharp. They're too real to be dreams, and too dream-like to be real. Cobb feels the world slipping away as the drugs wear off, and everything he's ever known fades into everything he's never wanted to be a part of, and he's in the laboratory, waking up. The three seconds after, for him, are a rush of blood to the head. It's adrenaline and panic and desperation as he rips out the tubes, ignoring the pain, and leaves the room, looking for some assurance that this world is real. Maybe the softer awakenings are worse. Maybe it takes the attack of a powerful kick to truly bring him back to reality. Cold water. A weapon.</p><p>The three seconds are a connection.</p><p>Arthur puts all his faith in his abilities, detonating the charges and feeling the pulse of the elevator's jolted movement mixed with his own pounding heartbeat as the plan works. Everything has been timed to perfection, and they are relying on him. </p><p>He wants to rely on himself too, but he's unsure. He can't remember ever feeling this unsure. Now, on the floor of a broken elevator seconds from exploding, he feels it. Terror. Doubt.</p><p><em>Wake up</em>, he urges, bracing himself for the impact.</p><p>And they do. In the three seconds before they're all launched upward into a higher plane of the dream, as he feels his own conscious mind slipping away, he feels it. Movement and growing awareness of what's happened. He will tell the story later, but now, he relaxes. He breathes.</p><p>Eames is awake, and already thinking quickly, as he always does. He takes in the elevator in one second, and recognizes what's happened in another. The plan has gone wrong. Something always goes wrong, but Arthur adapted.</p><p>They make eye contact in the last second, and it's all Arthur needs. Enough time for a breath, and an acknowledgement, and an understanding. He's taken care of everything. He's taken care of them.</p><p>For a moment, he wishes there were more seconds before they wake up. What would he do? He's unable to move, frozen in place with adrenaline, but he'd keep looking. He'd keep taking in that look, wanting to hold onto it for ages. He never thought meeting another person's eyes could feel so good. It's electric with reassurance.</p><p>Maybe Eames is about to say something before they wake up, but he never gets that far. Three seconds is impossibly short, even when time feels frozen. His eyes say it all, everything Arthur needed to hear.</p><p>
  <em>Good job.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Thank you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I'm impressed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You're resourceful.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you.</em>
</p><p>Arthur has been alone for what feels like hours, forced to be creative in a dangerous situation. He didn't know how badly he needed a connection, even if it's only three seconds long.</p><p>The three seconds are tense, and then they're stifling.</p><p>Three seconds after an agreement has been made and an understanding has been reached, Cobb rises from his place at the table, breathing shakily, and crosses the room to Saito. It's been years. It's been an eternity.</p><p>There's no game of persuasion or convincing. He doesn't have to provide any more evidence than his presence. The top, spinning. Saito knows what he knows, and they've already reached an agreement. They are both getting out.</p><p>Cobb lowers himself weakly to his knees by the chair, preparing himself. The gun is on the table, full of potential, and he can practically feel the metal against his head.</p><p>"You know what you have to do," says Cobb, hoarse. Then, as if catching his old harsh tone, he adds, "please."</p><p>He's made his case. It's all in Saito's aged hands as he takes the gun, hesitating for a moment as he meets Cobb's gaze and Cobb lowers his eyes, as if ashamed, apologetic.</p><p>"You can send me first, if you want," says Cobb quietly. "If you're not sure. It's okay."</p><p>He expects a protest of a question, but there's nothing but grim determination as he feels the barrel of his gun touch just above his eyes. In the last three seconds, he sets his jaw, bracing himself for the impact after what's felt like an eternity of waiting. He'll have to trust Saito to do the same for himself afterwards.</p><p>And in the last second, with his eyes closed in expectation, he feels a slight brush of fingertips under his jaw, tracing the spot where tears of exhaustion had fallen.</p><p>"I trust you," Saito says.</p><p>After that, it's a blur as his subconscious tries to reorient him in something real. Breaths and gasps of layers of the dream. The icy wind of a hospital in the snow. Fallen concrete, already settled. His mind can't settle as he's jolted back through a dream that's long since over, the dreamers all waiting for him at the end.</p><p>The three seconds after are crushing, as he finds himself strapped to the seat of a car, powerful pressure forcing water down on his body, into his lungs, and he fights the burning, dying sensation long enough to break free and find Saito in pure darkness. He fights his way into the back of the van, unsure why. Maybe it's just what he himself would have wanted all those years ago with Mal, when he was still haunted by those three seconds when he could see the train coming, and feel it pounding in his skull. Someone to be there with him in the seconds before he woke up, assuring him that everything would be okay. He can be that person now.</p><p>In the last three seconds, as he feels himself drowning, coming back to reality at last, Cobb feels a hand tighten around his wrist. The last sensation before an entire world collapses.</p><p>The three seconds are a surge of emotion.</p><p>The passengers of a first-class flight release a collective held breath.</p><p>
  <em>We are alive.</em>
</p><p> </p>
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